Class Notes 2/3/10

Act II Scence II

Question 25-What does he mean by,"...there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so"?
(Hamlet says this when he's talking about Denmark)
-He says that Denmark is like a prison because he's not allowed to leave and to go back to school go go anywhere else
-Everything is really a prison-up to the universe
-All about your preception, how you feel about where you are
-you might be in prison physically, but not mentally
-only you can control your mind

Nutshell: What if a person was stuck inside a nutshell there whole entire lives and it was all they ever knew of the world? The nutshell is infinate until you come out and see whats outside of it.
-Hamlet was stuck in his nutshell (Dennmark) until he went to school, and saw the world, now he wants to get back out there. He has been enlightened and doesn't want to be stufffed back.

-Perceptions are what dictate our realities, our good perceptions and bad ones
-There is no such thing as a real world-it all depends on perception
ex:People are all at a stadium watching a football game, none of them are watching the same game though because everybody's reality's are different.

Hamlet likes using words/lines
-we must use language to get things done
-things are described by function-it is whatever we choose it to be, everyone has a different way
-it is what you choose to call it, nothing more then that
ex: What is abortion?
What is life?
What is marriage?
What is a terrorist?
-Who has the right to define all these words?

Words=Symbols
-How do we make symbols for absrtact concepts?
-Can we point to love like we point to a stapler?
-Nobody knows what things are, they only know perseptions

What about numbers?
-time is all relative, it doesn't exist